Lady Gaga Wins Small Court Victory In Legal Battle With Ex-assistant

A New York judge has cleared Lady GaGa from any wrongdoing after a former assistant accused the singer of failing to turn over emails relating to her ongoing legal battle for unpaid overtime.

The singer is fighting Jennifer O'Neill in court amid claims the ex-employee is owed $380,000 (£253,334) for 7,168 hours of extra work during the 2010 Monster Ball trek.

Gaga, who has denied the allegations, recently obliged to an order demanding that she provide a number of key emails exchanged between the two between 2009 and 2011, but O'Neill insisted there were further messages that had not been turned over.

She claimed forensic evidence from her laptop proved that there were more emails that Gaga had yet to surrender to the court, but the Poker Face superstar hit back, insisting her Google email account had purged the notes 30 days after she first deleted them - and was therefore unable to retrieve them.

Manhattan Federal Court Judge Paul Gardephe sided with Gaga during a hearing on Wednesday (14Aug13) and dismissed a motion from O'Neill's lawyers seeking to sanction the musician, reports the New York Daily News.

He stated, "Plaintiff has not offered any evidence that defendants have withheld responsive emails, or that they destroyed emails (after they were ordered to keep them)."

Earlier this week (begs12Aug13), celebrity photographer Terry Richardson lost his bid to halt the court-ordered release of more than 142,000 photographs he took of Gaga on tour after arguing he would suffer "immeasurable financial loss". O'Neill alleged Richardson's snaps would help prove the lengths she went to to please her employer.

The case continues.